“She owes us all an explanation,” Human Rights Foundation’s director of institutional affairs, Alex Gladstein, said in a statement. “The king is a kleptocrat who lives in the lap of obscene luxury while most of his countrymen toil in abject poverty for less than $2 a day.” According to Billboard, Badu replied in a since-deleted Tweet, “I was not paid by the KING. I had no idea of the political climate.

“I want to address the people, not a group or a government agency,” she told the Dallas Morning News. “The people know I was not endorsing the king or helping to further his political agenda. I have no agenda. I went into a situation not completely knowing the political climate of the kingdom. I can’t be held responsible for the situation in the kingdom because I signed up as an artist, not as a political activist. I don’t belong to anyone or to anything. Anything I do is because I am a human being, and I am for the people.”

Badu, who had been in South Africa working on music, told The Dallas Morning Newsthat she made the trip as a “harmless” last-minute gesture for an acquaintance. Jacob “The Jeweler” Arabo, who organized the party, told her that he needed a replacement. She presented Mswati a gift from Araboa and left to stay at a friend’s. “And all the money that I got from the trip I gave to all the servants in the house,” she said.

Should Badu have performed in Swaziland?

Does she owe an explanation?

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